


Reading Bees: Too Familiar

by Kiiratam



Category: RWBY
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Minific
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:27:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22476355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: Taming The DragonJ.A. CorvinusWren Heraldis a shy, innocent girl, safe and sheltered as a daughter of nobility can be. But when an already exciting visit to court is interrupted by a petition from a foreign nobleman, she falls deeply in love...Count Béla of Batoroviahas fought long and hard for his land, trying to keep it safe from the grasping eunuchs of the empire. But even his strength has its limits. Putting aside his pride, he travels abroad to request military aid, when his eye is caught by a sweet, blushing girl...Yang Xiao Longwasn't given a choice on what book she was going to read next.Takes place between Volumes 1 and 2. (My BMBLB fic index)
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 11
Kudos: 63





	Reading Bees: Too Familiar

"So what did you think?"

  
Yang hadn't even closed the book yet. And her mouth was full. She waved her soup spoon at Blake, and tried to swallow faster.

  
"Sorry." Blake looked down at her plate.

  
"Hey, do you want one of my rolls?" Ruby held it out across the dinner table. " I grabbed too many, and I need to save room for dessert."

  
"Sure." Blake set it on the side of her plate, very intently _not_ looking at Yang.

  
Weiss huffed at Ruby. "You eat too many sweets. An ideal diet-" 

  
Yang tuned her and the impending 'discussion' with Ruby out. Closing _Taming the Dragon_ , she started with the easy stuff. "The smut wasn't bad. No real surprises, though."

  
"I thought that much was well written. Especially considering the author is a guy."

  
"Huh." Yang checked the cover. 'J. A. Corvinus' wasn't exactly revealing. "You looked him up?"

  
Blake nodded. "He's a Faunus. It's not a Menagerie publishing house, either, so when I heard about it, I wanted to check it out."

  
"Well, good on him. Yeah, not bad, considering he was writing from a female perspective." She rifled through the pages. "But pretty vanilla. Well, 'vanilla.'" Yang waggled the book for half the air quotes. "From everything about Béla, I was expecting him to be more into kink."

  
"Guess not."

  
And now everything got a lot more chancy, because Blake had more or less insisted Yang read this book next. And she'd just been waiting impatiently for Yang to finish, even waving off an offer to head down to Vale to give Yang more reading time. Impatiently and silently. Blake wasn't exactly easy to read, and she had been more distant than usual. 

  
Yang wasn't really sure what kind of opinion Blake wanted. Whether she actually wanted a discussion, or just someone to rant with, or she had really liked it, and didn't want to show that for some reason - it wasn't _that_ far from _Ninjas of Love_.

  
She was out of time, though. Blake could handle her actual opinions. "Honestly, the whole thing was just... a little creepy." Yang made herself keep talking, and not check Blake's expressions, see if she was saying the right thing. "Béla just- I mean, I know he's supposed to be a Bad Boy, and the whole romance is about 'taming' him, but... he isn't, really. Wren takes the edge off of him, but she doesn't actually change him at all." At the next table over, she saw Ren look up, and held the book up, tapping it. He nodded, and went back to listening to Nora.

  
"If anything, I think Wren's the one who changes. I mean, she starts the book as this wilting, blushing romantic, and she really hardens up as the book goes on. Once she sees the realities that Béla has to deal with, keeping Batorovia safe from the Empire." Yang sighed. "I know _she_ acts likes she's just putting away girlish things, but Batorovia doesn't actually exist. The whole situation just kind of felt contrived. Of _course_ the only workable solution is the casual brutality Béla resorts to. That's how Corvinus wrote it." She glanced up at Blake, who just nodded at her to continue.

  
"And Béla doesn't treat Wren like an adult, either. I mean, he outright calls her a 'foolish girl'. Repeatedly. Even if it turns into a term of endearment, that doesn't strike me as the best basis for a relationship. And even beyond that, all of the restrictions he places on her movement in the castle 'for her own safety.' Corvinus definitely plays with that - 'does Béla secretly have a room where he keeps all his murdered wives?' But no, it's just a semi-cursed magical sword."

  
"Maybe."

  
"Yeah, being coy with the magic didn't exactly endear me. Again, Wren's sheltered, but she's not an idiot. She should know if magic exists or not - or if Semblances do. The book had this weird ambiguity between them, and the stuff about Auras was just a mess."

  
Blake nodded. "Corvinus definitely didn't do the research there."

  
"The romance itself didn't really go how I expected. I mean, Lucian was introduced as an obvious alternative to Béla - and then he just never really became a full love interest? Wren's just madly in love with Béla, and Lucian only exists to make Béla possessive of Wren? I don't think Corvinus meant to write quite so much sexual tension between the two guys, but it's really easy to read them as exes or something. And I know we're _meant_ to read possessive Béla as hot, but - you don't take your girl and go home if someone else looks at her. Wren was having fun at the ball, and then Béla just swoops down and carries her back home, and smut smut smut." Yang sighed. "There was a line, um, 'you are _my_ precious' or something. That just came off as super creepy."

  
"Yeah." Blake gave her a little smile, and seemed to relax a bit. "It did."

  
"It wasn't badly written or anything - apart from the Aura stuff. But yeah, I don't think I'm interested in any more books from him." Yang picked her spoon back up.

  
"Me neither."

  
Ruby elbowed her sister. "Sis, tell her!"

  
"Huh?"

  
"Stolen cookies."

  
Oh. Yang knew how Ruby's arguments worked. She fixed Weiss with a level stare. "They don't count. Science."

  
"Ruby, that's not how that works!" Weiss gestured angrily with her fork.

  
Yang slid _Taming the Dragon_ across the table, and Blake stuffed it into her bag without much care at all. "So what's my next book, Blake?"

  
"Have I made you read _The Man with Two Souls_ yet?"


End file.
